Yawn!

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Do you have a bad conscience after a lie-in? No need at all. Sleep is work too – and absolutely necessary if we are to be in top form the next day.

We have all encountered them, the workaholics who are constantly at their desks, and who even boast that they need only four hours sleep a night. “Sleep is for my competitors”, they tend to say. And sure enough, from a purely scientific angle it has been confirmed that a few of us really can get by with only a few hours sleep. But that applies to no more than 1-2 per cent of the population, the rest of us have to retire to our beds on time. In fact, a single night of poor sleep can reduce productivity by as much as 40 per cent. So just like going to the gym or for a run, we need to look after our brains if we are to function properly. That’s quite obvious, but how often do we neglect this aspect and are bent over our computer until far into the night?

One person who literally got tired of all that is businesswoman and media queen Arianna Huffington. In her new book The Sleep Revolution she attacks our entire work ethic, which she feels has given us worse sleeping habits involving the need for pills and alarm clocks set too early.

So at the offices of her newspaper, the Huffington Post, she has naturally fitted out a sleeping room for herself and her staff.